proficient

From Latin proficiens, present participle of proficere (“to go forward, advance, make progress, succeed, be profitable or useful”), from pro (“forth, forward”) + facere (“to make, do”); see fact.

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /pɹəˈfɪʃ.ənt/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /pɹoʊˈfɪʃ.ənt/, /pɹəˈfɪʃ.ənt/

• Audio (US):

  (file)

• Rhymes: -ɪʃənt

proficient (comparative more proficient, superlative most proficient)

1. Good at something; skilled; fluent; practiced, especially in relation to a task or skill.

   He was a proficient writer with an interest in human nature.

   • 1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as chapter 5, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, 1914 June, →OCLC:

     By constant playing and experimenting with these he learned to tie rude knots, and make sliding nooses; and with these he and the younger apes amused themselves. What Tarzan did they tried to do also, but he alone originated and became proficient.

• (good at): skilled, fluent, practiced

proficient (plural proficients)

1. An expert.
   • 1880, Francis John Bellew, Memoirs of a Griffin; Or, A Cadet's First Year in India, page 202:

     The colonel now addressed me, […] adding, "I hope we shall send you to your regiment up the country quite a proficient, and calculated to reflect credit on your instructors in the Zubberdust Bullumteers."

   • 1924, Herman Melville, chapter 10, in Billy Budd‎, London: Constable & Co.:

     Why not subpoena as well the clerical proficients?

• (expert): expert; see also Thesaurus:skilled person

• profit
• profitability
• profitable
• profiteer
• proficiency

• “proficient”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.
• “proficient”, in The Century Dictionary , New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., 1911, →OCLC.

prōficient

1. third-person plural future active indicative of prōficiō